The second discrepancy regards data which conversely report intact BM mechanisms in ASD. These findings were later replicated by Annaz et al., and Nackaerts et al.,, further suggesting that all elements of BM perception is weakened in ASD. This was not the case however those with autism still made many more errors compared to the control group. Such task was relatively unemotional, and should have evoked a normal performance. Blake et al., asked children with autism to state whether a brief point-light animation represented a body or not. By contrast, there is evidence of the impairment extending to non-emotional stimuli too –. Similarly, impairment has been observed when those with autism identify point-light bodily expressions of anger, happiness and disgust. Performance was relatively normal on tasks involving body actions or inanimate movement. For example, one study found that high-functioning children with ASD only experienced difficulty perceiving point-light emotions. A number of studies report that the deficit only exists when perceiving emotional BM –. The first discrepancy concerns what aspect of this perception is actually impaired in ASD. One factor may be due to abnormalities in the mechanisms responsible for biological motion (BM) perception.īM has been widely studied in ASD, yet the current data is equivocal. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous developmental disorder, characterised by a severe impairment in social communication and interaction. Without the ability to perceive this information, social interaction would be difficult. We can then use this to understand their thoughts, intentions and moods. Bodily movements, facial expressions and eye gaze shifts allow us to extract information from others. The human body conveys an abundance of information necessary for mediating socio-emotional communication. These results point to a deficit in facial biological motion processing in people with autism, which we suggest is linked to deficits in lower level motion processing we have previously reported. The ASD group’s performance was impaired relative to the control group in all three tasks and unlike the control group, the individuals with ASD failed to show an inversion effect. Stimuli were presented in both upright and upside-down orientations to test for the difference in inversion effects often found when comparing ASD with controls in face perception.
Participants completed increasingly difficult tasks involving the discrimination of (1) sequences of facial motion, (2) the identity of individuals based on their facial motion and (3) the gender of individuals. We used animated average faces to examine the ability of adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to perceive facial motion. Facial motion is a special type of biological motion that transmits cues for socio-emotional communication and enables the discrimination of properties such as gender and identity.